Tattered Fabric: Fall River's Lizzie Borden

On the wall of the Administrative offices at the Fall River Police Department are these photographs of the past City Marshal's and Police Chiefs.  (Current Police Chief John M. Souza is in the small "userpic" at the  top right of this blog entry).

• Rufus B Hillard - City Marshal - 1886-1909  (top left)
  

• John Fleet - City Marshal - 1909-1915  (bottom left)
  

• (Change from City Marshal to Chief of Police)

• William Medley - Chief of Police - 1915-1917  (center)
  

• Martin Feeney - Chief of Police - 1917-1931 (top right)
  

• Abel Violette - Chief of Police - 1931-1946 (bottom right)
  source: http://www.frpd.org/history.htm

Four of the five were involved in the Lizzie Borden case and had been in her house.   Lizzie damn near outlived them all.
                                  


On November 14, 2000, through the courtesy of then Lt. Charles Cullen of the Fall River Police Department, I was allowed access to the police records books of the mid 1880's through the early 1900's.  They were under the control and possession of Administration Lt. (now Deputy Chief) Cathleen Moniz.  When I arrived she had them laid out on her desk along with "all the remaining documents we have on the Lizzie Borden case", which was miniscule at best.  She was kind enough to let me handle, research and photograph these important ledger books.  Lt. Cullen had also arranged for me a tour of the new police facilities (completed in March of 1997) which included their huge evidence room.  High on a shelf was the camera long thought to have been "the" camera which photographer James Walsh took of Andrew and Abby - the crime scene photos - both just prior to and after the initial autopsies done at 92 Second Street around 4:00 pm, August 4, 1892.  As has been learned, while the camera in possession of the FRPD is indeed a police photographer's camera very similar to that one used on August 4th, it is not the camera, but one donated by a family member of a deceased police photographer.

In March of 2007, I contacted Deputy Chief Moniz once again and asked if she could arrange for the Arrest Record Book be brought out again so as to show to my friend, Shelley Dziedzic.  Again, Deputy Chief Moniz had them laid out and allowed us to take pictures.  She even gratiously took a photo of Shelley and me with the book.  Unexpectedly, having heard of our visit and plans to do a Lizzie Borden Conference, Police Chief John M. Souza, Fall River Police Chief since 2000, came into the room and spent an hour discussing the Borden case with us as well as other high profile murder cases.  We delighted in his conversation regarding police forensic investigations as contrasted in the Borden case of 1892, to modern police forensic techniques used today.   He  instructed Deputy Chief Moniz to take us down to the "vault" where  "historical" police records are stored.  (For security reasons, I'll refrain from describing the room or it's safeguards.)  While there it was interesting to learn that most all of the historic police files were lost in flood damage and, where the Borden case is concerned, also due to pilferage decades ago.  Now the Department has rigid policies and procedures to protect and preserve case documents.


Lizzie's arrest entry


Subsequent to the Preliminary Hearing of probable guilt, the entry of "Prob." was handwritten over the standard "Guilty" column.